The present invention pertains to an apparatus and related method for cutting and crimping the lead and trailing ends of a spiral coil binding a book of sheets.
Spiral binding coils have long been used to provide the edge bindings for books of paper sheets. Spiral coils may be metal or plastic. Books of sheets to be bound are prepunched with a series of equally spaced through holes along one edge of the book, and a spiral coil is typically inserted by rotating the coil on its axis and threading the same on a spiral path sequentially through the holes along the edge of the book. The lead and trailing ends of the spiral coil binding the book of sheets are then cut and crimped to inhibit unintentional withdrawal of the coil from the holes in the edge of the book. Spiral binding apparatus and methods have typically been fairly labor intensive and attempts to automate the binding process have been difficult due to wide variations in coils diameters, book thickness, coil materials and the like. Therefore, an automated spiral binding coil insertion device including a trim station for cutting and crimping the lead and trailing ends of the coil is desirable.